Jrizzo,

By "returned", do you mean the value that is stored in the table field
that this combobox is bound to, or do you mean the value that is
displayed in the combobox after the selection is made?

If the latter, then you need to make the appropriate entry in the Column
Widths property of the combobox, which means hiding the first column,
like this...
Column Widths: 0;2.5

Alternatively, if you want to actually see the number column in the
combobox's drop-down list, you could reverse the order of the columns in
the combobox's Row Source query/table.

Alternatively, if the number column is only for sorting and nothing
else, you could change your Bound Column and Column Count property
settings to 1, and make the Row Source just the one column, the SQL
would be like this:
SELECT Fruit FROM YourTable ORDER BY SortNumber

--
Steve Schapel, Microsoft Access MVP

jrizzo77 wrote:
can't figure it out. I have a combo box setup as below.

bound column = 2
column count = 2

I want to return the data in the second column to the table.
example:

1 Apple
2 Orange
3 Grape

I need to use the numbers in the 1st column so the user knows the
order of the second column but I want the value of the 2nd column
returned. I always get the value of the 1st column returned.

any help would be appreciated.